NYSCIO 2017: Key Takeaways From NYSERNet’s 16th Annual Event

As discussed in our recent blog, The Impact of Technology on Higher Education, technological innovation is making an enormous impact on the higher education system as an increasing number of institutions utilize IoT, Big Data analytics, OTT streaming technologies and advanced online learning platforms to provide students, faculty and administration with an abundance of new opportunities to enhance educational experiences.

Last week, NYSERNet’s 16th annual New York State Chief Information Officer (NYSCIO) conference took place at the Harbor Hotel in Clayton, New York, a region better known as the 1000 Islands. This event brings together Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and senior IT leaders from across New York State’s higher education community, providing a platform for networking, education and business development. I had the pleasure of attending the three-day conference to not only share information about the Telehouse services and solutions that benefit the higher education community, but to gain a deeper understanding of the various challenges and obstacles faced by academia’s leaders and decision-makers.

While in attendance, I had the opportunity to hear about the higher education’s most pressing topics, including IT compliance issues, digital transformation, Big Data analytics and integration of IT and academics. During the event, I was also introduced to the findings of the recent Fall 2016 Campus Computing Survey during a session led by Campus Computing Project Founding Director, Casey Green, who explored the various IT priorities of New York universities and colleges.

The results of the 2016 National Survey of eLearning and Information Technology in U.S. Higher Education indicated that there are five major priorities for today’s campus administrators, including hiring and retaining qualified IT staff; assisting faculty with the instructional integration of IT; upgrading and enhancing network and data security; providing adequate user support services; and leveraging IT resources to support student success. In fact, each one of these concerns was ranked a top priority by more than 75 percent of survey responders.

As stated by Mr. Green in the official report, “Perhaps not surprisingly, the list of the top five IT priorities has been fairly stable for the past several years. Campus IT officers confront and must manage their budgets to accommodate rising, and at times, competing demands for a wide range and growing range of IT resources and services.”

In order to facilitate the services and solutions that will propel digital transformation throughout higher education systems, the availability of reliable, high-performance infrastructure is an absolute necessity. Colocation providers around the world are becoming integral to technological enablement for campuses, providing lower costs for data storage and analytics, simplified application and network management, and the opportunity to scale for future growth.

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to attend this year’s NYSCIO event and engage with higher education experts and decision-makers, sharing how Telehouse’s high-performance, carrier-neutral data centers can provide campus CIOs and IT officials with dedicated and shared facilities designed to suit their unique requirements.

If you’d like to learn more about the impact of technology on the New York State higher education system, join us at The 2017 NYSERNet Conference, taking place October 2-3 at the Syracuse Downtown Marriot.